Past Atrocities
by Estel Fir
Summary: This is a story with no names or job descriptions... but if you put 2 and 2 together you'll know who I'm talking about... Jeff & Matt Hardy . There is also an alternate ending so check that out too!
1. Origional

**Past Atrocities**

I watch him from the alley, he doesn't know I'm here. Sometimes I wish I could just walk up to him and reveal my presence, tell him everything. Let him know everything I know. But I can't. I must sit here and watch him until the time is right. I look away for a second to light my cigarette then return to my silent observation. He was just another face to me before, but now… Now I can't take my eyes off of him. He is beauty incarnate.

He heads inside the club with a few of his friends. And I am stuck waiting outside listening to the faint bumping of the music inside. Like Chinese water torture the repetitive thumping begins to make me go a little crazy. My SUV seems to collapse around me. I can't breath.

I step out into the crisp September night to get some air; city air, stale, decrepit, polluted air. It doesn't help. I climb back inside the SUV and turn on the engine, letting the heater chase the cold autumn air off of me. The thumping is still there. I turn on my own music in an attempt to drown it out. I can feel the vibrations from the heavy club base shaking the seat underneath me. I try everything I can think of to shut it out… but the thumping is still there.

Somewhere, somehow, I fall asleep. I don't realize that I have until I awake sometime around 1:00 a.m. Damn, there are no coffee shops open in this neighborhood at this time. I toss a caffeine pill into my mouth. I have nothing to chase it down with so I force myself to chew it into a bitter paste and coerce it down my gullet, fighting the urge to vomit. A cigarette cures the taste and settles my stomach back to it's silent churning. Within fifteen minutes I feel the drug kicking in.

I don't know if he is still in the club, I'm an idiot for falling asleep. I light up another cigarette in anger at myself. I finish, turn off my car, and step outside. Making sure not to get run over by the nightlife drivers I cross the street to the club and produce a picture from my pocket.

"Excuse me, did you see my boyfriend go in here? We were supposed to meet a couple blocks away a half an hour ago, do you know if he's left already?"

The bouncer buys my story, as they always do. They'll tell a pretty lady anything.

"Yeah, I saw him. He went inside with some people but they haven't come out yet. Would you like to go inside to find him?"

"No, that's OK. I can wait."

I turn to leave and I hear his laugher emanating from the exit. Unable to hear himself properly he speaks loudly to the others with him. Then it happens. Our eyes meet and I must now improvise.

"There he is," the bouncer proudly exclaims, like he should get a damn metal for being able to point someone out that I'm already staring at.

I walk seductively up to him, he hasn't taken his eyes off of me. I rest my hand softly on his arm and look him up and down as if undressing him with my eyes.

"Hi there," I say softly. My cool, low voice seems to hypnotize him. I have him wrapped around my little finger. I begin to walk slowly past him down the side walk, trailing my hand along his torso. It's so muscular I nearly shudder with pleasure. My hips move slowly side to side as I saunter away from him. He follows me like a lost, hungry pup follows a man with bacon in his pocket.

He catches up to me and I can smell the alcohol on his breath as he looks at me. One corner of his mouth raises up in a charming half smile, I turn my face away. He is too gorgeous.

"Wha's your name?" he is clearly inebriated, even if the smell didn't give it away.

I lie.

"I didn' see you in th' club."

"I didn't go in."

"Oh. Don' you wanna know my name?"

"Sure," I say, but I already know his name. I know everything there is to know about him. "It's very nice to meet you. I should let you get home now. I'm sure you've got a big day tomorrow."

"Not really. Tomorrow's my day off. Nothing to do but whatever I want. You wanna come with us?" His eyes plead like a puppy asking me to throw the ball just one more time.

"Where are you going?" _You shouldn't be doing this._

"My house, we're gonna hang out fer-a while, watch some TV, relax." _Don't do it, don't go._

"Sure, it sounds fun." _Idiot! _

"Can I ride with you?" Again with puppy eyes and half smile. I melt a little inside.

"Sure. Let me just go get my car."

"OK, I'll be right back, gotta tell them I'm going with you." He struts off drunkenly after his friends and nearly trips over nothing along the way. He looks back at me, making sure I didn't see it, I pretend I didn't.

When I get to my SUV and open the door his file is sitting neatly in the passenger's seat where I'd left it. Damn, what have I gotten myself into? The folder is open and his picture is smiling up at me; I melt. Making short work of scraping the loose pages back into a neat pile and closing the cover over the top I quickly hide it under my seat. Just in time for him to appear at the passenger window.

"I was going to go get you," I say as I unlock the door and he climbs inside.

"I didn't feel like waiting." He looks around, "Hey, nice Jeep."

"Thanks." I say, starting the car and pulling slowly out of the alleyway. "Where to?" I ask even though I know where he lives.

When we arrive at his house his friends are already waiting at the front door for him. We all go inside and sit in his den. We watch movies that hold no interest to me and make small talk while drinking coffee and eating chips and popcorn.

He turns to me, looking in my eyes. I return his gaze. "So what do you do for a living?" He asks me, he seems to be sobering up from the coffee.

Again I lie.

"Anything I might have heard about?"

"No, I shouldn't think so. What about you? What do you do to keep such a cozy lifestyle?" I already know, I also know his brother is in the same business. But he doesn't know that I know everything there is to know about him, including the things he doesn't tell anyone.

"I can't believe you've never heard if me!" He looks shocked. But to be honest I've heard of him… the first time I heard about him was over a year ago. Way before I got this assignment.

"Not everyone is interested in what we do, you know," his brother pipes in. They look so much alike they could be twins; not identical, but close.

"Oh, come on," he seems determined to make me realize I've seen him before. "You must've at least see us on magazines or commercials. Maybe even online."

"Sorry, I don't do much web-surfing. And I avoid television and magazines like the plague." Actually I avoid pretty much everything. I move through the shadows and I live in the darkness. The only thing I do pay any attention to is the news to make sure no one has spotted me while I'm working. My cell phone rings excusing me from having to explain that one away. I excuse myself and take it outside.

"Yeah?"

"How's it going?"

"Slowly."

"That bad, eh?"

"Yeah. But what can you do?"

"How is that project coming?"

"There have been some setbacks, but I'll get it done."

"Good. Hey, I'll call you later, all right?"

"Yeah, see ya."

I hang up and the phrase _I'll get it done _seems to be stuck in my head like a broken record. If I don't take care of this then someone else will, and then that someone will be sent to take care of me. The conundrum in which I find myself leads my nicotine cravings into overdrive. I light a cigarette and take in as much as I can at a time.

His face flashes into my mind and I am torn. I shouldn't have been so careless to get spotted. And now I'm getting involved. I have never had this problem before. What's so different about this one?

I butt out the last of the 27 and head back inside to sit down again. They've put another movie in, which I am appalled to see is about a hit man who falls in love with his target. Damn, I can't escape this.

By the end of the movie I am annoyed by the fairytale way it turns out. They live happily ever after in a tropical paradise.

"If only life were more like the movies…" I mumble to myself. Everyone else seems to have fallen asleep and I am left to my thoughts… not.

"Hmm? What do you mean?" He is still awake. Damn, now I'll have to think quickly.

"Happy endings, true love conquering everything. Don't you think that in real life if someone wanted a person taken care of they'd keep looking? And trust me they'd be found, it's how we work. Then someone would be sent to take care of not only the original target but the renegade as well."

"It's how _we_ work?" Oh damn… my first slip.

"Humans… we're very determined by nature to get what we want."

"You seem to know a lot about this stuff. You're not really a hit-woman, are you? Am I your target?" For a second I think my cover has been shot to hell; then he starts laughing. "You must read a lot of spy novels and creepy stuff like that. I wouldn't peg you as the type to sit at home and read all that much, though."

Thank my lucky stars I'm still in the clear.

"What's wrong with reading?" I ask him, "It exercises the mind. You know what exercise is. And judging by the size of your biceps I'm sure you get your's in excess."

"I have to be strong in my line of work. If you're not one of the best they'll drop you like a hot potato and feel absolutely no remorse." He unnecessarily flexes his biceps which makes them look gargantuan.

"That's kind of how my job is."

"Yeah, I can see how strenuous your job must be." Sarcasm interlaces with his tone.

"You have no idea."

He turns the television to some early morning program and I find myself being lulled to sleep out of the sheer insipidity of the show.

My sleep is littered with disquieting images and thoughts. I get the feeling of floating or being carried, but I do not stir. In my dreams he comes to me, bloody tears streaming from empty sockets, flames surround him, never burning him, fighting with each other for dominance over his body. His voice is gruff and gravely as he speaks to me. Only the words do not come from him, but from the depths of my mind.

_Why did you do it? Why did you kill me?_

'I had to!' I yell at him, tears stinging my eyes and choking my words.

_But you don't even know me._

'Yes I do.'

_A folder full of papers is not who I am. I never hurt anyone. Why did you kill me?_

I fall to my knees sobbing into my hands but his image is burned in my mind. 'I didn't know. I didn't… I was just following orders…'

"Following whose orders?" I wake up and he is standing above me.

"Were you watching me sleep?" I sit up and rub the fatigue out of my eyes.

"No, you're just in my bed and I was getting something out of the closet to wear. I only started staring at you when you said 'I didn't know, I was just following orders.' What are your orders?"

"How am I supposed to know? It was just a dream." And that's when it comes to me. I know what I have to do.

"Everyone's gone," he says as he reaches in the closet for a shirt, then quickly adds "but you can stay if you like."

"Actually, I have somewhere I have to be at noon."

"Oh." Obvious disappointment.

"But I'll be available later. Would you like my number?" He seems to re-inflate before my eyes.

"Sure!" He almost throws a notepad at me from inside the nightstand in his fervor.

"Call me around six?"

"You bet. Allow me to escort you to your car?"

I let him. And before I can prepare myself he pecks me softly on the cheek and heads back inside. What possessed him to do that? I shake myself back to reality and head home to get ready for my forthcoming undertaking.

A week later we're at his place having drinks and listening to soft music by a cheery fire. It's almost become our nightly tradition. He's telling me a story about his greatest moment in his career. I smile and laugh with him, knowing that soon he won't be laughing anymore. Soon the substance I slipped in his glass would take effect and he won't even be moving. Before he has a chance to finish his story his wineglass falls from his hand onto the carpet. My plan is perfect. I set sleeping pills in his medicine cabinet; the substance in his system will show up as being the same. Carefully opening the glass cover to the fireplace I reach with the poker and close the flue. I add more wood and scatter some papers on the floor. First I take care of some more minor details, then I sprinkle embers across the papers. They ignite and quickly spread to the flammable cotton rug in the middle of the carpeted room. I make sure it reaches the couch before taking my leave. On my way out I check that the lights are on and the blinds are closed. No one will know there's a fire in this house until it's too late. And they'll find the man on the couch completely devoured in flame and unmistakably dead.

I don't stop driving until I am too tired to go on and then I head home to sleep.

I wake up still weary and feeling desolate. I shower and dress in a daze, just going through the motions and not really thinking at all. I collect the file on him and shred it, then I burn it in the barbecue. I pack my bags for a desperately needed vacation and load my Jeep.

I turn on the news, it's in the middle of the report on the house fire.

"…_there were no signs of foul play in this tragic accident. Once again here is footage of the house when the firemen got there."_ Video of the house completely consumed by fiercely burning orange flames is shown. Firemen stand at a safe distance concentrating all of their hoses on the house. I know the man inside will be almost completely incinerated from the heat in the basement/den. There is no chance he survived. I did my job. And I did it well. The news anchor is shown again giving her condolences to his family and friends. _"He was a great man.."_ yes and he was great at what he did, we get it already. _"He will be greatly missed by the people who knew him. The world will be grieving for him tonight."_ She goes on to say that his fellow entertainers are already planning a memorial service for him which will be aired during the regular show. His friends will be dedicating something to him, and it is not something anyone would want to miss.

I turn off the TV and climb into my Jeep. I light a cigarette and blow the smoke out through the cracked window. Taking one last look at the house, I put the gear to reverse and head into the unknown.

The man gets out of his car and heads up to the door. I invited him here to hear my confession, but he doesn't know that.

He makes himself comfortable and we sit, listening to faint music emanating from the stereo. I can't stand it any more. I have to come clean.

"The reason I brought you here is so you could know the truth."

"What's the truth?"

"Listen, there is an organization out there where, if you know where to go, you can hire someone who will take care of things for you. Things like loose ends, nuisances, or someone that's in your way. Over half of the accidental deaths in this country are not really accidents. It's their handiwork. It's all anonymous, under the table. They get the target and the cash then send someone out to take care of it."

"What does this have to do with anything?"

"I used to work for those people. Someone put a hit out on your brother, I was sent to do the job. I was given a file on him. I knew everything, even his darkest secrets. But I didn't know _him_."

"What… what are you talking about?"

"I just want you to know that he didn't feel a thing. He was dead before the fire started. I know, you'll want revenge or justice or something, anything. I have done many things in my past that I am not proud of. It never bothered me before, but now… Now I see his face in my dreams, even as I sit here, wide awake and speaking to you, I cannot shake his image from my eyes. I got too close to him."

He doesn't say anything, just listens in silence, looking at me as if he can't comprehend the things I am saying.

"I just wanted you to know how sorry I am. You needed to know. I killed him because if I didn't follow through then someone else would have been sent to take care of him, then they'd have killed me. I'm no longer a part of the organization, but I haven't been able to rest since."

"I'm sorry, I still don't understand."

I ignore him and continue. "They move headquarters every month. They cannot be traced, tracked, or infiltrated. They leave no paper trails, nor any electronic trails. We shred and burn our files after each successful hit. We only deal in hard copies so they're easy to eradicate. Now, I offer you a chance for revenge. An eye for an eye."

He says nothing. Just gets up and leaves.

The flames close in around me as the thumping continues, I sit calmly on the cot of a bed in my small windowless room. It has been two years since I arrived here… The flames have been burning since before then. The thumping even before that. They follow me everywhere I go. At night I still see him in my dreams, crying bloody tears and surrounded in flames. I want to pull my eyes out, but my arms are confined in this contraption, this jacket. Every day I pray the flames will consume me and end my suffering, but they don't, they're not even hot. They're not even real.

A woman enters with the pills they've been making me take since I got here. She opens my mouth to put them in then follows them with a straw that leads to a cup of water.

"You have a visitor. Would you like me to send him in?"

I don't move. I just watch the flames eating the room around me but never touching me.

"How are they treating you in here?" I don't answer him, I don't even look up. "You know, you don't have to be here." The flames begin to move up his pant legs. "If you got better you could leave, make a fresh start." I begin to smell the burning of his flesh, he doesn't budge. "I can't imagine what it must be like in here." The flames climb up his torso and I want to warn him, but I don't. "Why did you leave? I never saw you after the fire." I finally look at his face.

"You're dead!" I scream. "I killed you! It was on the news, there was a funeral!"

"No, none of that happened. My house caught fire while I was in bed. The firemen got there in time to put it out before I lost everything."

"No, no I killed you. I burned your body…" Suddenly I don't know anything anymore.

"Do you even know where you are? You're in a psychiatric hospital. My brother had you committed after you told him that story. Do you know why you're here?"

"I'm taking my punishment. Doing penance for the wrongs I have done."

"You haven't done anything wrong. Your mind is lying to you." He brushes the hair out of my eyes. "Hey I gotta get going, I'll be back tomorrow. I hope you remember this time." He turns and leaves and the flames follow him out the door. I am left alone in this white room with padding on the walls, unable to move. The woman comes back in to feed me my lunch.

"How did it go?"

"Has he been here every day?"

"Just about. Nice man, isn't he?"

I don't answer, I just eat the food she shovels into my mouth.

As she closes the door behind her I am left alone in a room I don't belong in. I get up and pace the room slowly, singing to myself. I lay down, exhausted mentally, and fall asleep.

I wake up to screaming, it is my own. Opening my eyes I can see a flame in the corner. It rises to quickly engulf the room, a faint thumping accompanying the rise and swell of the fiery tongues. I push myself up to sit curled in the corner and watch the flames eat away at this room I am confined to. The walls begin to close around me; my room is collapsing. The flames lick around me, but I cannot feel their heat and they do not burn me. I pray they will consume me, ending the suffering I feel from causing so much pain in the lives of others. I want to die. I am alone, save for the flames.

The flames punishing me for my past atrocities…


	2. Alternate Ending

The house is quaint but I've fallen in love with it's country charm. The bank was surprised when I paid for it in full. But it is perfect. Secluded, lonely, surrounded by trees; home. I pull my new Hyundai into the garage and breathe deeply of the cool November air. My Jeep is long gone. It was listed as a random car fire and for 'some reason' the owner could not be found.

I've grown used to this new life of simplicity. The man gets out of the car after me and I help him with his luggage. He's just visiting. I've invited him up for the week. I show him where everything is, show him to his room, and we head into the kitchen for something to eat.

"Do you miss your brother? It's been what… two months since… the accident."

"Two months to the day." His eyes are glassy and I can hear the strain in his voice.

"Would you like to watch the tribute? I just bought it. I missed it that night it aired."

I can see him fighting the knot growing in his throat. "Sure. That'd be kind of nice."

He makes himself a stiff drink and we sit to watch his brother's accomplishments. Tears swell in his eyes and he sets his forehead in his hands, cooling his face on the icy glass. I head into the kitchen to make myself a drink.

"I think it's time," I mutter as I walk into the liquor bottles on the small island.

I return to the living room and continue to watch the video. The man next to me covers his mouth and stares through the tears at the images of his brother's accomplishments.

"I was so proud of him, he didn't have an ounce of quit inside him. He put his heart and soul into everything he did. If he could somehow hear me right now I'd tell him how much I love him. He will always be my baby brother. My partner in crime. I wish he knew how much I miss him." He buries his face in his hands and cries openly. "If you can hear this, wherever you are, I love you, man."

"I love you too, bro."

He stops weeping and looks around for the source of his brother's voice and finds it. In the doorway to the dining room stands his brother, smiling ear to ear.

"That was the nicest speech I've ever heard." He walks into the room and the man beside me hops up. They embrace each other so tightly I'm afraid their heads will pop right off.

"Hey, stop crying you big baby."

"But… you…" he says, wiping his eyes.

"It was all her. I would've told you but she didn't even tell me until we got here."

I smile as they both look at me, waiting for me to tell the story.

"I got too close. Couldn't go through with what I was hired to do… So I torched a phony. I'm sorry I didn't tell either of you. I just couldn't risk my plan being overheard. Just know that he can't go back to his old life. In fact he can't even do anything that would get him recognized. So until you cut and dye that hair you're not leaving this house."

"I'll do it tomorrow." he winks at me, smiling. He turns to his brother, "How about we go outside and duke it out for old times' sake?"

"I'll kick your ass."

"Not if I kick your's first!"

They run out to the back yard, I can hear them on the area I had specially prepared for just this occasion. I continue to watch his tribute video and smile.

If God does not forgive me for my past atrocities at least I will die knowing that two brothers are still able to wrestle each other in the back yard for years to come, just like when they were kids.


End file.
